


Tongue-Tied

by kaeorin



Series: Loki's Lullabies [137]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Language, Loki (Marvel) Does What He Wants, M/M, Multilingual Character, Reader-Insert, Words
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-10
Updated: 2020-08-10
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:22:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25815724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaeorin/pseuds/kaeorin
Summary: Maybe you struggle to find just the right words a little more often than the others, but Loki doesn’t seem to mind.
Relationships: Loki (Marvel)/Reader
Series: Loki's Lullabies [137]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1678240
Comments: 9
Kudos: 159





	Tongue-Tied

You had never really been the most eloquent person. You got too excited, you stumbled over words, you had to pause for too long in the middle of sentences to remember how to say a certain word in a certain language. In your head, your thoughts whirred past at a thousand miles an hour, but your tongue had always had a lot of problems keeping up. Thankfully, your friends were patient people. Even when you got flustered by too many stumbles in a row, they often just smiled encouragingly at you and remained quiet, giving you plenty of time to gather yourself and carry on. In slightly less-laid-back environments, you were slow to speak, wanting to make sure that your thoughts were straight and organized before you sought the attention of a staff meeting or something. Maybe that had lost you several opportunities to speak at all, when the conversation shifted topics before you had the courage to speak up, but it worked for you just fine. Mostly, you laughed at yourself when you had to stop in the middle of a sentence, and it was true that adding in something like “I’m not sure of the word in English, but...” did give you the tiniest of ego-boosts when you were talking to your more monolingual friends.

But things got worse—and better—when you started talking to Loki.

It started out with you simply speaking while in his presence. You weren’t afraid of him, but damn if he wasn’t intimidating. He was gorgeous. Something about his perfect face and his regal posture and the sharp, wary expression he so often wore, they reminded you of just how human you were and...kind of make you want to shrink into yourself. But it would be silly, if not impossible, to refuse to speak or interact with others while Loki was in the same room, so you got over it and got used to forcing yourself not to worry about whether your voice was annoying him. 

After some time, he started chiming in, especially when you were just talking to Wanda. He was kind of sheepish at first, apologetic, and made his eyes go wide or wincing at the both of you as though testing to see if he was actually welcome in your conversation. Of course he was. He was lovely to talk to. He was brilliant, of course, which kept you on your toes, but he didn’t have too big a head about how smart he was. And he was _funny_. He could pull you into a long and winding story, filling things out with all sorts of details until you were utterly involved in the story, at which point he often grinned and delivered a punch line that made you groan and push him away. He seemed to delight in your reactions, grinning wide each time you gave him a dirty look or rolled your eyes at him. You started to wonder how on Earth you’d ever been intimidated by him.

Now, familiarity did not necessarily make it much easier for you to get your words out. Just because you’d gotten used to him did not mean that you were suddenly perfectly able to express yourself without any troubles whatsoever. But he had surprising patience with you, and on the rare occasion that he ever interrupted you, it was mainly just to offer the word he thought you were looking for.

You started spending more time together. You started having more one-on-one conversations. You didn’t notice the growing softness he held in his eyes when he looked at you, but you certainly noticed the way your heart would skip a beat when you looked at him. He took your hand, once, and you scarcely remembered anything else about the conversation after _that_ because you were so busy trying to mentally catalog the way he felt. And you were definitely already a mess by the time he leaned in to kiss you, but, thankfully, your body knew exactly how to respond to something like that.

Things progressed quickly with Loki. It took some adjusting, getting used to him and all the history he had. Your relationship wasn’t exactly simple and easy, but the love that shone in his eyes—and in your own—more than made up for most of the difficulties you faced. But there was one difficulty that just seemed insurmountable.

When you talked to Loki one-on-one, he listened with rapt attention. You started to notice how his eyes would be locked onto your face, your mouth, and how he’d smile faintly as he took in your words. It became...well, rather distracting. You’d be in the middle of a story and look up and just be completely bowled over by the sweet, loving look that he was giving you. He had to know that it made your brain completely shut down. He had to know that it made you want to shut up and just gaze back at him. He _had_ to know that it made it even more difficult for you to string your words together. But he just kept doing it!

Maybe a direct approach was best with someone like him. So, one afternoon, you let your brows furrow into a kind of glare at him and crossed your arms. “Quit smiling at me, I can’t stop messing up my sentences when you look at me like that!”

His eyebrows shot halfway up his forehead, like maybe he _hadn’t_ known all those things. His mouth dropped open and he raised one hand to his chest. “I can’t _smile_ at you?”

You felt your scowl beginning to slip already, so you redoubled your efforts and narrowed your eyes at him. “Not when I’m speaking! Stop it!”

He sat forward a bit, his face going sly, and a bit challenging. “I can’t help it, love, you just do things to me. I like looking at you. So I smile.” He leaned in even further, like he was going for a kiss, but you leaned away to keep your mouth just out of reach. He wasn’t going to get away with that so easily. 

After a moment of thought, you lifted your hands to your face: one to cover your eyes, so you couldn’t see his face and one to cover your mouth so he couldn’t steal a kiss when you weren’t looking. “There. Problem solved, for now. So...what was I saying?”

You heard him laugh, almost under his breath, and the sound filled you with warmth. By all appearances, he was as amused by you as you were by him, and that felt sort of unthinkable. You could hear him shifting a bit as you tried to continue your last abandoned sentence, but then he launched himself at you and dragged your hands away from your face. He knocked you backwards onto the sofa, eliciting a rather embarrassing squeal from you, but when you met his eyes again, he was still only grinning. He hovered there above you, pinning you down with his hands and his body. His hair hung down around his face and lord if it didn’t tempt you to reach up and caress it.

“That’s not fair!” you protested. You made your brows go as heavy as you could, despite the smile that threatened to break across your face. Maybe you liked moments like this, moments where Loki was allowed to be free and silly and perhaps a little bit demanding. Because, once again, he leaned in for a kiss. At the last minute, you turned your face away from him so he only got your cheek, which made him growl and dig his fingers into your belly. 

No matter how you squirmed or protested or fought against him, Loki was relentless. He tickled you until you were gasping, begging for mercy, and only then did he allow his fingers to go still again. You pouted up at him, which made him laugh and have to look away.

“I can’t help that I enjoy listening to you,” he said in a low voice. “Your eyes light up. Your face is so animated. I admire your passion and your heart. I love watching you while you search for the perfect word. I’ve never met anyone like you. Please, forgive me if I can’t help but smile. But I’ll do my best. For you.”

His words were so soft, and his gaze so open and adoring, that maybe it made every last thought of whatever it was that you were originally talking about absolutely disappear from your mind. So you drew in a deep breath, let it out slowly, and then sat up a little to capture his lips with yours.


End file.
